Chương 33: The Aptitude Test — Sandbagging Fails

The Radiant Assessment Pedestal, standing at the center of the arena, was an octagonal crystal block three meters tall, encased in a black bronze-alloy frame, fitted with dozens of arcane pressure gauges and optical mirrors. Every few dozen seconds, another young noble stepped up, placed a hand on the inscribed ring, and channeled as much mana as they could muster. Whoosh! BOOM! A pillar of blue or red light would shoot straight into the sky, piercing the arena's protective barrier.

The arcane speakers mounted at the four corners of the stands would immediately blast out the measured numbers, sparking waves of frenzied cheering from a hundred thousand spectators.

"Competitor Leonard von Grantham! Level thirty-one! Combat Power: four million two hundred thousand! Seed Rank: C — Monster!"

"Competitor Charlotte de Valois! Level twenty-nine! Combat Power: three million one hundred thousand! Rank D — Elite!" Standing in line below, Lucian had both hands stuffed in his pockets, quietly running the numbers in his head. His plan for the morning was simple, clean, and thoroughly economical. He'd place a hand on the pedestal, carefully release exactly one feeble thread of mana, keep the displayed number around three hundred thousand — just enough to land him a Rank E (Rookie) ticket.

Rank E meant the organizers would toss him into the weakest bracket, keep him off the press's radar, keep every genius noble from targeting him for elimination, and, most importantly: The underground betting houses in the capital were currently offering 50-to-1 odds on a Rank E contestant winning the qualifying rounds. He'd already sent Sylvia off with two thousand gold to bet on himself. Win three preliminary matches and he'd pocket a clean hundred thousand gold without breaking a sweat.

A low-risk investment with an absurd rate of return.

"Next competitor! Registration number 1847! Lucian Vance!" The assessor's voice rang out over the arcane microphone. Lucian swept his ash-grey traveling cloak aside and climbed the marble steps at an unhurried pace. The assessor was an elderly royal mage, a single monocle over one eye, a leather ledger in hand, wearing the weary expression of a civil servant working overtime on a Sunday. He glanced at the ten-year-old and spoke in a flat, even voice.

"Place both hands at the center of the pedestal. Take a deep breath, push all your mana from your core out through your palms. No interruptions."

"Yes, sir." Lucian placed his small hands on the cold crystal surface. Layered Focus: Activate. His second stream of consciousness took over like a precision pressure valve, calibrated down to individual energy particles. He gathered exactly fifty points of mana — a pathetically small amount — and slowly pushed it out through his ten fingertips. Lucian had overlooked one annoying detail about the royal test. The Radiant Pedestal wasn't a simple mana scale.

It estimated total output from the pressure pattern created as mana crossed from the caster into the crystal. Every normal caster leaked some fraction of that energy into the surrounding air, and the pedestal used those fluctuations as part of its calculation. Children leaked more. Veterans leaked less. But nobody leaked absolutely nothing. The problem was that Lucian had just claimed the jackpot reward at the Vael-Kharas Dungeon: Spell Control at ninety-five billion two hundred million.

The rate of mana leakage from his hands into the surrounding air was exactly... 0. 000000%. His fifty points of mana flowed into the crystal in a perfectly closed loop, generating not a single ripple of heat, not a single displaced speck of dust, and no pressure fluctuation whatsoever for the arcane sensors to register. Ten seconds passed. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. No pillar of light rose into the sky.

The octagonal crystal block stood still, dim and cold as a rock beside the road. Beside the pedestal, the metal pressure gauge started acting strangely. Its bronze needle shuddered and jerked back and forth violently, like it was having a seizure. Click. Click. Click. It leapt from zero all the way to 999, 999, 999 in a tenth of a second — the measuring algorithm trying to divide an energy value by a leakage rate of zero, a divide-by-zero error — then instantly crashed back down to a clean, round zero.

The old assessor looked up from his ledger, adjusted his monocle, glanced at the darkened crystal block, then down at Lucian's hands.

"Hey, kid," he said, rapping his knuckles against the machine's casing.

"I said push the mana out, not stand there warming your hands. You do have mana, don't you?"

"I'm giving it everything I've got, sir," Lucian said, forcing a strained expression, furrowing his brow slightly to look like a boy straining to summon power.

"Guess my aptitude's just too low to light the machine up." The old assessor smacked the side of the bronze machine irritably, the way one might whack an old TV with a bad signal.

"Strange... we just swapped in a fresh magestone this morning, didn't we? Is the sensor shorting out, or is this kid a bottomless black hole that doesn't leak a single spark?"

"Ha ha ha ha!" A sharp, mocking laugh rang out from the back of the line. Julian von Valois — the fifteen-year-old heir of the Duke Valois household, dressed in gem-studded ceremonial robes, a Seed Rank 2 crest pinned to his chest — stepped up to the edge of the platform. He crossed his arms and looked at Lucian with half-lidded contempt, his voice echoing sarcastically across the whole competition area.

"Typical garbage merchant! Bribing public opinion with dirty book money, and the second he steps onto the royal pedestal, the truth comes out — he's a total washout! Not even enough mana to move a needle, and he still has the nerve to show up and compete against us nobles!" The young nobles around him instantly joined in, their laughter rippling with mockery.

"The Sword Emperor's son has zero mana?"

"He's got to be adopted!"

"House Vance's humiliation is complete!" Lucian withdrew his hands from the pedestal, completely unbothered by the crowd's jeering. The ten-year-old's gaze drifted briefly to Julian von Valois's left wrist. There, glinting in the sunlight, sat a diamond-studded pocket watch, its casing solid dragon-gold, engraved with the Valois family crest — an arcane clockwork masterpiece Lucian could price at a single glance: market value eight hundred gold; scrapped for its gold and gems, a clean twelve hundred at minimum.

Lucian turned to face Julian directly, the corner of his mouth curving into an entirely too-friendly smile.

"Friend, you seem awfully confident about winning, don't you? Care for a little bet later? I'll put up cash. You put up that pocket watch on your wrist." Julian faltered for a moment at Lucian's strange composure, but a great noble's arrogance quickly overrode the hesitation.

"A washed-up Rank E scrub wants to bet with me? Fine! Let's see what you'll have left to pay me back with once you're on the arena floor!" While the young nobles laughed below, the mood in the highest viewing box was very different. Three silver-bearded Royal Archmages sat ramrod straight, their eyes sharp as hawks, fixed on the still-dark octagonal crystal beneath Lucian's feet.

"Did you see that?" one archmage said quietly, fingers trembling slightly against the stone armrest.

"It isn't that he has no mana."

"I saw it," the mage beside him said, narrowing his eyes, voice thick with alarm.

"The space around the pedestal is completely, perfectly still... not one millionth of an energy fluctuation leaked into the air. That boy is holding a hundred percent of his mana locked inside his body without losing a single particle.""' Absolute Stillness'... a level of microscopic arcane control that even an old man like me, after eighty years of cultivation, could only maintain for three seconds at most..."

On the royal dais, Princess Eleanor stood with her arms crossed, her blue eyes fixed on Lucian's small back at the pedestal. She thought back to that perfectly refracted beam of light that morning, and shook her head slightly, her mouth curving into a helpless smile. Trying to sandbag your way through this to swindle more people out of their money, aren't you, Lucian Vance...

Down at the arena, the old assessor, after fruitlessly smacking the machine while the needle refused to budge, let out a long, exhausted sigh. He picked up his red ink stamp and slammed it down on Lucian's registration form.

"Unable to classify magical fluctuation. Filing under: Anomalous Competitor — Unclassified Category! Transfer directly to the Open Bracket!" Lucian took his registration slip and looked at the words "Open Bracket" (also known as the Death Bracket — where every competitor with unusual abilities or unclassifiable power got dumped for straight elimination matches), letting out a long, bitter sigh. There goes my fifty-to-one Rank E payout... This garbage sensor really doesn't speak human. Ting!

A sharp chime rang out from the massive arcane display screen floating above the arena. The Round 1 matchup list appeared in brilliant golden text. [QUALIFIER — BRACKET 3] [MATCH 1: LUCIAN VANCE (HOUSE VANCE) VS. ARMORED KNIGHT BRUNO VON VALOIS (HOUSE VALOIS)!] Lucian looked up at the name "Bruno von Valois" on the arcane display, and something clicked — the list of overdue debts Sylvia had shown him just the night before. He tucked the slip into his pocket, the corner of his mouth curving into a delighted smile.

"First match, and I already get to face one of the family's debtors... Looks like today's a two-for-one deal — I get to compete AND collect on a late payment."